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By Kent Larsen
Church Tells King County: Rural Limits Unconstitutional
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON -- At the request of Elder Gordon Conger, an Area
Authority Seventy in the Seattle area, the LDS Church asked its
principal outside law firm, Kirton &McConkie, to review the county's
attempt to limit the size of Church buildings in the county's rural
areas, and learned that the attempt is unconstitutional. The review
and its resulting six-page legal analysis came in response to King
County Executive Ron Sims' proposal that nonresidential buildings
outside the county's urban-growth boundary be limited to no more than
10,000 square feet.
Sims made the proposal last year, and churches in the Seattle area
have fought back against the proposal, arguing that the limits would
keep them from serving rural populations and limit their freedom of
worship. Sims propose the size cap to protect rural areas from
suburbanization.
As previously reported in Mormon News, the proposal led the county to
put a 10-month moratorium on new buildings outside the urban-growth
boundary. The LDS Church has participated in the opposition to the
plan, although Church officials say that they currently have no
immediate building plans in the area. The Seattle Times does quote
Conger as saying the Chruch is considering a stake center in rural
Snoqualmie Valley. LDS stake centers are generally 20,000 square feet
or more, well above Sims' proposed limit.
Kirton &McConkie's analysis indicates that the proposed size limits
would be unconstitutional, under both the US constitution and the
Washington state constitution. It also cites a recent federal law,
proposed by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and signed into law by President
Bill Clinton last September, which seeks to protect churches from the
use of zoning laws to discriminate against them.
But while the LDS Church is suggesting that the proposed limit might
be successfully challenged in court, the Church Council of Greater
Seattle, has backed away from its earlier opposition to the proposal.
The Council's board adopted a statement in November urging the county
not to impose the proposed limits, but last month it dropped that
call, and instead urged the County Council to "regulate urban and
rural growth while also recognizing the reasonable needs of religious
institutions to build adequate facilities." Church Council
president-director Thomas Quigley said the change comes because the
churches also recognize the need to protect rural areas from sprawl,
"Those are competing values," he said, "and they both have
significant support in the church community."
Source:
Mormons join foes of rural limits
Seattle Times 2Mar01 T1
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com:80/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=mormon02m&date=20010302
By Eric Pryne: Seattle Times staff reporter
Seattle Times 2Mar01 T1
By Eric Pryne: Seattle Times staff reporter
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